Spring Curriculum
During the spring term children will be learning all about growing. To view the curriculum and see how you can support your child at home please follow the link below;
What is Letters and Sounds?
Letters and Sounds is a structured approach to the teaching of phonics, reading and writing, which is used by teachers across England in primary schools. The content is organised into phases. Children will be ready to progress to each stage at different ages and teaching is organised to best meet individual children’s needs. This may mean that your child is not always working with children in the same year group. Phonics is taught every day. Our Homework policy also links into phonics (or spelling as the children get older).
Phase 1/2- Nursery, Activities concentrate on developing children’s speaking and listening skills, awareness of phonemes and blending and segmenting skills.
Phase 2 – 4 Foundation Stage 2, This is when systematic, high quality phonic work begins. Children learn how to represent each of the 42 sounds by a letter or sequence of letters, how to blend sounds for reading and how to segment words for spelling. Set 1 s a t p Set 2 l m n d Set 3 g o c k Set 4 ck e u r Set 5 h b f ff l ll s
Phase 3 – Foundation Stage 2 , The final letters are introduced, 15 digraphs and 2 trigraphs Set 6: j v w x Set 7: y z, zz qu ch chip ar farm ee feet sh shop ear dear or for igh night th thin/then ur hurt oa boat ng ring ow cow er corner ai rain oi coin air fair oo boot/look
Phase 4 – Foundation stage 2/Year 1, Children consolidate their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes and begin to blend more complex words.
Phase 5 – Year 1, Children learn new phonemes and investigate how the same phoneme can be represented by different graphemes. ay day oy boy wh when a-e make ou out ir girl ph photo e-e these ie tie ue blue ew new i-e like ea eat aw saw oe toe o-e home au Paul u-e rule
Ways you can support your child at home
- Reading together – Teach lots of nursery rhymes – each one tells a different story.
- Enjoy and share books together – buy or borrow books that will fire their imagination and interest. Libraries will advise you of popular books.
- Make time to read with your child throughout their time in school – PLEASE continue reading to your child, even when they are reading independently. This is very important – your child needs to practice their reading skills every day, and needs the support of an interested adult.
- Let them see you reading – grown-ups can share their magazines about their favourite sport or hobby.
- Read with your child – ask your child to attempt unknown words, using their phonic skills and knowledge. Make sure they blend all through the word.
- Talk about the meaning of the book – take time to talk about what is happening in the book, or things that they found really interesting in an information book. Discuss the characters and important events. Ask them their views. Provide toys, puppets and dressing-up clothes that will help them to act out stories.
- Explain the meaning of words (vocabulary) that your child can read but may not understand, for example, flapped, roared.
- Listen to story tapes.
- Teach your child some action rhymes – ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’, ’Here we go round the mulberry bush’, ‘We all clap hands together’. Use CD’s or the Cbeebies website of nursery rhymes to sing along to.
- Add sound effects when reading a story and encourage your child to join in.
Useful websites
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks Watch as the letters of the alphabet tell stories and make words using phonics. Play the learning game, watch clips and print colouring pages
- www.phonicsplay.co.uk – free interactive resource (Buried Treasure and Picnic on Pluto supports alien words)
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/phonics/magicpencil/index.shtml
- http://www.letters-and-sounds.com
- www.parentscentre.gov.uk/foragegroup/5to7years/alittlereadinggoesalongway
- This link gives ideas about how to help your child as they are learning to read.
- www.read-count.org/index.asp A website for you and your child to explore together – it will give you some ideas about reading with your child and has online games for young children to play, both with you and on their own. It also has ideas for games to play away from the computer.
- www.bookstart.co.uk This website provides information about the national Bookstart scheme and the Bookstart packs that your child will receive as a baby, a toddler and at age three to four. It also gives information about sharing books with your child. You can find out about Bookstart events in your area, which you can attend with your child.
- For more information on how schools teach children to read with phonics, visit: http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/pedagogy/phonics